AS I WRITE, the Bali bombers, to the best of my knowledge, are still alive; and the United States of America has just hailed a popular new leader. It is a good moment in history for the leaders of Western bloc allies Australia and America to make two progressive gestures (one tiny and of regional significance, one a gesture that would contribute mightily to global goodwill and understanding).

FIRST, the Bali bombers. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is known to be opposed to capital punishment. Australia has no right to interfere in the affairs of Indonesia, and certainly no right to tell it how its government should deal with men who have been convicted of obscene acts of indiscriminate terrorism in which hundreds were killed and maimed.

But Rudd could officially inform the Indonesian Government that, if the Bali bombers (and the Australian drug runners under sentence of death in Indonesia) had been found guilty in Australian courts, their punishment would not have been death.

Unlike his predecessor, Rudd did not hesitate to say sorry to Australia’s “stolen generations”. He said it forthrightly, not as a perpetrator of those crimes, but as a man genuinely sorry that the stolen-generation crimes were committed by governments long before his time.

Rudd’s “sorry” speech last February was a fine start to the process of domestic reconciliation. His next gesture to Australia’s indigenous owners should be to say sorry for the genocidal impact of European invaders since Britain’s decision to occupy their homelands more than two centuries ago.

To maintain the impetus of Australia’s newfound morality, Rudd should advise Indonesia, publicly, of his government’s position on capital punishment. If such a gesture helped preserve the lives of the Bali bombers, it would be a welcome small step along the road to morality, a road that has been all-too-deserted for all-too-long.

SECOND, American barbarism. All of my life, the US has been terrifying, traumatising, persecuting, prosecuting, terrorising, torturing, penalising, provoking someone, some tribe, some culture, some faith, some nation, some movement, somewhere. Its leaders have always tried to justify these actions as being in defence of “the American way”.

A-bombing Japan; more than a decade of mass murder in Indochina; support, financial and military, for corrupt, cruel and dictatorial leaders worldwide (especially in Central and South America) . . . the list goes on.

Suffice it to say that, in my lifetime alone — and without numbering non-military atrocities committed by the CIA and via infiltration by Washington and Pentagon spies of organisations such as the American Peace Corps and Christian missions — there have been more than 80 documented incidents of uninvited American meddling in the affairs of other nations.

These incidents have bred huge amounts of anti-American animosity in foreign communities, faith systems, even national governments, towards not so much the American people as towards Washington and the Pentagon.

Today, Barack Obama, probably more popular than he ever will be again, has a fine opportunity to, simultaneously, announce to the world that the US’s barbaric approach to international affairs is at an end; and that the planet’s most powerful nation is genuinely determined to strive to win back the respect and affection that people worldwide felt for it on September 11, 2001, the day that Osama bin Laden wounded America — and provoked a humiliated, possibly deranged George W. Bush into knee-jerk, scatter-gun, murderously monstrous retaliation.

Kevin Rudd’s opportunity to heal the wounds of history pale alongside the opportunity Barack Obama has of winning back for his country the respect that the Bush years squandered.

Obama could, for a start, begin talking to the leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan as a human among equals; as a leader who acknowledges that they, too, have the right to assert that they, just as much as the president of the US, represent the interests of their nations. This gesture alone would be a start to getting sorted the catastrophic mess humanity is making of planet Earth.

The stains of shame that the administrations of John Howard (Iraq lies, “children overboard”, young people behind razor wire for the entirety of their childhoods, human rights violations towards refugees, no “sorry” . . .) and George W. Bush (Iraq lies, indiscriminate murder in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Graib . . .) have inflicted on their nations’ reputations cannot be erased.

Rudd and Obama know that. What they can do is bring messages of hope to the world that the years of Western barbarism are over. Only in this way can the forces of hate that feed off anti-Western sentiment be disarmed. — BOB HAWKINS

ENDIT

Bob HawkinsToday, Barack Obama, probably more popular than he ever will be again, has a fine opportunity to, simultaneously, announce to the world that the US’s barbaric approach to international affairs is at an end; and that the planet’s most powerful nation is genuinely determined to strive to win back the respect and affection that people worldwide felt for it on September 11, 2001, the day that Osama bin Laden wounded America — and provoked a humiliated, possibly deranged George W. Bush into knee-jerk, scatter-gun, murderously monstrous retaliation. Kevin Rudd’s opportunity to heal the wounds of history pale alongside the opportunity Barack Obama has of winning back for his country the respect that the Bush years squandered.

Thank you Bob. My grandmother (bless her) always said “never use the word ‘hate’”. I am proud of you Bob - you are a candle in a grim world. I am feeling ill at the thought that bullets are about to puncture the Bali Bombers’ hearts. Rudd has an opportunity ... but will not act. JA

Posted by Randall P McMurphy on 06/11/08 at 10:10 AM

Barack Obama’s Zombie Followers and The Hell That Awaits America..

I want to make it clear that I have absolutely no interest in politics and do not care who the president is. Politics are not real and presidents do not run countries. The United States of America is run by the same occult religion that runs the whole planet, operating through the Council on Foreign Relations and various other “non-governmental organizations”. The political theatre is just that: theatre. It is a scripted drama played out for public consumption. The fact is, there is not a single point in the history of the world where anything was ever changed by voting.

This following is not about Barack Obama; it is about his the mindset of his followers, and how they are going to follow the leader through the final death throes of the Old World.

I don’t get out much, but a few months before the election, I was at a pretty hip night club in downtown Columbus. I noticed a guy with an Obama t-shirt on, sat down next to him and asked if it was a joke. He said it wasn’t. I asked about his reasoning in supporting the man. Rather than form his own response, he quoted a slogan, “I think we need a change”. I asked what kind of change, noting that Obama publicly supports the continuation of the war in Iraq, as well as the invasion of Iran, Syria, and Pakistan. He informed me that Iran was one of the world’s key nuclear powers. I said that was nonsensical. He asked me if I wanted to get nuked. I sighed and asked him about Iraq. Clearly becoming uncomfortable, he said we had to do something or Iraq would have invaded us. I asked if he was aware that we had killed roughly a third of the population of said country, and he said “well that was the third that wanted to kill all Americans”, and got up and walked away.

This was my first confrontation with an Obama zombie. The following encounters kept to this pattern almost to the letter. These people are exactly the same as the followers of George Bush. They do not care about anything, other than a romantic image, downloaded directly into their brains by the mass media.

Obama has been sold as is an intellectual champion of the people ordained by the University intelligentsia to rescue us from Christian idealism and lead us into a humanist utopia. Sadly, when you look at the plan he is actually presenting, it is almost impossible to distinguish it from that implemented by George W. Bush over the past 8 years.

These people don’t know who Zbigniew Brzezinski is. They have never heard of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Federal Reserve, PNAC, AIPAC, SPP, or the Brookings Institute. They have no conception of the history of the United States, the Middle East, or any other part of the world. They have been raised on Hollywood and the public education system. They are utterly defenseless.

All they know is that when they see Barack Obama, and hear him speak, it makes them feel warm inside. They chant slogans, relishing in obtusely vague terms like “hope” and “change”. With smiles on their faces, they will follow this supposed leader in which ever direction he takes them.

As I explained above, the Obama supporters are perfectly alright with continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as invading a bunch of other countries for no reason. We are going into Iran and we are going into Syria. This is key. The purpose of these wars was not so George Bush could make oil money, it was to conquer the last remaining free people, who still retained their culture, religion and values, and bring them into the One World system.

Though it couldn’t be done under Bush, “compulsory universal service” legislation will be passed under Obama, as it will be sold as some type of communistic “working for the greater good”, “everyone should have to pitch in” façade. Rahm Emanuel claims he only wants this program to apply to people from the ages of 18 to 25, but in actuality this is a carbon copy of the Soviet program, where everyone, from High School up through middle age, is associated with the military in some capacity. The original bill that was introduced to congress by Trilateral Commission member Charles Rangle, called for all those between the ages of 18-42 to serve at least 2 years. This includes women. Some form of this will be necessary for the new wars that I can guarantee you, Obama will get us into.

The ostensible premise for the wars will alter slightly, though it will still be about protecting America, defending Israel and spreading freedom, the fear-mongering will be downplayed and there will be more of an attempt to make the conquest efforts seem somehow humanitarian in nature. Expect this to be brilliantly marketed, with heavy reliance on the “Muslims oppress women and homosexuals, we have to save them” angle. This is a very easy sell to the Obama cult.

Posted by Andre on 09/11/08 at 12:56 PM

You don’t get out much Andre?

It’s a warmer world - I feel it in me bones.

Sincerely etc.

GC

Posted by Goodnight Cobbers on 10/11/08 at 09:47 AM

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